Probably every reader of a good trilogy or tetrology has come to the
end and wished there was more. Usually there is not, but as I got
misled looking for storybooks at the local library and discovered this
book instead. I felt a bit like an archaeologist who finds an
archive of previously unknown history. And so this book proved to
be. Some of the stories shed light on the back history of
Earthsea, and some add flavor to the culture, but all are interesting
and well worth reading.

“The Finder”

In the days before the school of magic
on Roke was founded, after the rule of the Mages, when the Archipelago
was ruled by local warlords, a young Gontish carpenter’s son with
emerging wizardry curses a boat that his father’s shop was making,
because it would be used for war. He was found out by “The
Hound,” the local warlords “finder” and shipped off to an encampment
where a wizard obsessed with the supposed properties of quicksilver
enslaved people to smelt the ore. One of the women working there
is a witch and she helps him undo the web of spells that binds his mind
and communicates a spell of the earth that opens the earth underneath
the wizard and traps him. In his escape he finds some women who
are members of a secret group of witches who have preserved knowledge
of magic and who teach him a little. Pursued by the warlord, he
changes shape to an Otter and arrives at another island, where he
continues his escape by signing up as the weatherworker for a
ship. The ship is ruined by a magewind attack and he changes to a
bird and flies to the nearest island, Roke.

Here he finds a very pastoral community of mostly women, some of whom
know magic. They are skeptical of his intents, since men had
razed Roke because of the wizards there, but he eventually earns their
trust and they teach him what they know of magic. (At that time
mages could be women.) He and one of the women develop a sort of
love relationship and they decide to start a school of magic to bring
peace to the archipelago from the warlords. The Roke women had
founded a society of the Hand, and Otter goes to various islands using
the network to find capable students. Along the way he happens
across the Book of Names, which he recovers and brings back to
Roke. Eventually capable mages for all the major branches are
found, with his love spending much of her time as the Master Patterner
in the Immanent Grove. As the school becomes better known, the
Mage of Gont (who was controlling the warlord there) attacks Roke with
a fleet of ships. He flies in arrogance as a dragon, but becomes
himself as he alights on Roke Knoll and one of the women strip him of
his power. After the school is established, Otter becomes the
Master Doorkeeper, determining who is worthy of letting into the school.

“Darkrose and Diamond”

Diamond is the son of an aspiring
lumber producer who shows signs of being both a skilled musician and a
powerful mage. His father sends him off to a mage to be trained,
but he does not love magic, and he is not willing to be celibate (as
mages are, in this time period). Particularly since he is in love
with the village witch’s daughter, Darkrose. Unfortunately, the
mage set a spell around him such that Darkrose’s sendings did not reach
him and she, thinking that he had lost his love for her, abandons him
for a local troubadour. Diamond runs away from the mage, returns
to the village, and finding that Darkrose is no longer interested in
him, returns to his father and begins to learn the family
business. On his 18th birthday, his father throws a large party
and hires some local musicians, one of whom is Darkrose’s
boyfriend. Late in the evening he finds Darkrose and asks if she
would live the minstrel life with him. She quickly accepts and
the two run away, eventually becoming a well-known and liked minstrel
pair, although Diamond’s father never forgives him.

“The Bones of the Earth”

The story begins with the mountains of
Gont being restless. An old wizard who lives in the area becomes
aware that something is not right. He seeks an oracle from a
certain spring and realizes that there is going to be an earthquake
very soon which will destroy the populous port of Gont. He
Summons a well-loved pupil of his whom he tells to hold the mountains
at the port, while he deals with the roots of the mountain. In
his youth he was taught a spell of transformation that would make him
one with the earth, but which is irreversible. Sacrificing his
pastoral life for the people of Gont, the wizard casts the spell and
works within the bones of the earth to remove their tension, saving the
people of the city.

“On the High Marsh”

A half-crazed wizard who cannot
completely remember who he is wanders off the mountain highlands into
the home of a farmer woman. She hosts him and he cures her cattle
of the plague and spends a week curing the cattle of another local
farmer. After he finishes, he gets into a fight with a
incompetent (but successful) healer who accused him of taking away his
business, almost destroying him. Most of the town rises up
against him, but Ged, the Archmage arrives seeking him, for it he is
one of the Masters at the School of Roke. He had grown arrogant,
powerful, and jealous, and had sought to destroy the other Masters, one
by one. After one success, his next victim was able to get a
Sending off to Ged and the two of them barely defeat him. In the
intervening time the wizard realized that what he did was wrong and
desires to live a simple life. He has built a good relationship
with the woman who hosts him, and begins a love relationship that
promises to be much deeper in oneness than her husband who had died.

“Dragonfly”

A woman from a declining lordly family
uses a inept mage-in-training to get to Roke to become a wizard. The Master Doorkeeper feels that he should let her in, even though the
rule is that women are not allowed to become mages. The Masters
are somewhat split, and the Master Patterner takes her into the Grove
to let her learn from the Grove what the patterns are. The
Archmage, Ged, had used all his power sealing the rift between death
and life in the fourth book, Tehanu,
and refuses to come to resolve the dispute. A new archmage is not
forthcoming, although the Master Summoner, who returns from his long
sojourn following Ged to the wall between death and life, desires the
position. The Masters opposing the teaching of the girl come to
throw her out by force, but she goes to the knoll, where all things are
as they really are and no magic can be done. There she discovers
her true identity as she turns into a dragon and flies off.

The stories are the same quality as the original Earthsea trilogy (I,
personally, did not think that Tehanu
met the same standard). Like the trilogy, the reader vicariously
experiences many islands and subcultures as the characters travel
throughout the Archipelago. The stories retain the epic, mythic
quality that the trilogy, particularly A Wizard of Earthsea, has but yet
are more peaceful, less driven. Instead of the goal being clearly
laid out, the reader is quietly introduced to the goal as the
characters themselves become aware of it, which leads to less tension
in “will the protagonist succeed in what happens next” to more of a
curiosity "what willhappen next?” This has a
calming effect and the stories tend to be relaxing, although equally
gripping.

One of the interesting things is that the stories are an odd
combination of adventure and relationship. In the classic fantasy
trilogy by Tolkien, the story is virtually pure adventure, although
there are hints of deeper relationships and and outworking of a long
history that largely remains a mystery to the reader. The Chronicles of Narnia, by Tolkien’s
fellow writer, C.S. Lewis, have a similar simple adventure, although
the adventure is actually an allegory. Le Guin’s stories have
adventure in that the characters travel many places and experience many
things, but unlike her male counterparts, for whom adventure appears to
be the end in itself, for Le Guin, adventure is merely the means for
the relationship. Adventure is necessary, but the focus is on the
relationships. As such, the book has a unquantifiable female feel
about it, which as a male reader, I found rather odd. Somehow the
adventure was lacking something—probably a grand reason for the
adventure, a grand task to accomplish. The relationships she
describes and builds have a deep quality, but left me, as a male reader
a little unsatisfied. I should hasten to add that this is merely
a minor quibble and more of a note about the differences between male
and female writers of fantasy.

The relationships are actually very interesting. For example, “On
the High Marsh” has a particular quiet mystery about it, as the farm
women gets to know the unknown man, gentle but with some serious
past. The story is about the wizard, but the reader is drawn not
to the wizard, but to the woman’s reactions to the wizard. The
story is equally about the woman discovering a man who is all that
woman deeply desires (gentleness, caring, oneness), even though he is
confused and broken. Aspiring single males could learn a lot
about the desires of a woman if they pay attention to the subtleties of
this story.

The Earthsea books have an increasingly pantheistic view of the world,
but this becomes much more prominent in this collection of
stories. The primal spirits change from being evil to being good
and something that perhaps ought to be embraced. There is an
implication in the stories that the Witches are somehow more in tune
with the primal, mothering nature of the world than the Mages are,
despite their greater depth of understanding. There is sort of an
implicit suggestion that the Mages, in their intellectualism, have lost
an important experiential understanding of the world. I doubt
that this was intentional on Le Guin’s part, but one could see a
feminine emphasis on relationships showing up here, contrasting the
Witch’s relationship with the world to the male Mage’s greater power
that is largely divorced from the earth itself.

The stories are a pleasure to read. Although as a Christian and a
scientist, I really find pantheism to be untenable, and as a man I
found the relationships vaguely unsatisfying, the stories really are a
grand adventure and the relationships are deep and meaningful. These stories are well written and a pleasant change from standard
goal-driven fantasy (although most readers will not find this coming to
consciousness). They introduce the reader to new lands and new
people and constantly leave the reader wondering what new experiences
they will (vicariously) have next. The stories are a fine
addition to the Earthsea books and I recommend them highly.

Review: 9.7

Very well written. Although I did
not notice it until I started writing this review, I like the subtlety
that the stories have. There always is a goal, but it is only
revealed to the reader piecemeal, which I think makes the stories
somehow calming. Le Guin has a fine imagination and creates
beautiful lands and compelling subcultures. I always find myself
exploring the world along with her. Unfortunately, the themes of
female equality with men that run through most of the stories kind of
bother me, not because I am opposed to it, but because I have always
assumed that women are just as important and men and it seems a waste
to keep talking about it. I was surprised to find myself a little
unsatisfied with the tales, but although I suspect it comes from being
a man, in reality, any story with a deep and consistent backstory and
culture will leave one longing for more, so this is not really a
serious complaint. I really think the writing is a superb example
of fiction, and this book will be enjoyed by all who read it.

Magical Things

Book of Names

A fairly comprehensive
list of the True Names of many things. Knowing the True Name of
someone or something gives the mage power over that thing.

Quicksilver

Some lore suggests that
drinking quicksilver (mercury) gives the drinker the great power and
wisdom of the metal, although this is likely completely false.

Witch’s lore

Sort of a hodgepodge of
spells. Witches do not have the deep understanding of magic that
Mages do and their spells are less powerful.

Earth spirits

In previous books these
spirits were untamed, evil spirits that were located at certain places
in the Archipelago. Le Guin redefines these to be primal,
pantheistic spirits that one could invoke for certain nature spells.

The Wall

A low, brick wall that
separates the world of the living and the dead. Once a spirit
crosses over the wall, the person dies. Very, very rarely can a
Mage lead someone back from across the wall, and there is a large risk
that the Mage himself will become lost in the land of the dead.

Immanent Grove

A grove of trees on Roke
whose roots go to the roots of the world. The Grove is Truth, and
the patterns of its leaves, shadows, and life under its branches
reflect the state of the world, albeit in a difficult to perceive
fashion. The Grove is bigger than it seems.

Roke Knoll

A grassy knoll where
every transformation is reversed and all things appear in the proper
form.

Magewind

A wind originally cast
by
the women of Roke to keep ships away, but which is now controlled by
the Master Windkeeper. If any evil or opposing force approaches
the island the Windkeeper creates a virtually irresistible wind to keep
them at bay. Thus, if anyone arrives at the island, the
Windkeeper has expressly permitted it.

True Name

A True Name can only be
given to someone in late adolescence, by a magic worker, either a Mage
or Witch. The namer listens for the name from the currents of
magic (or perhaps the pantheistic spirit that everyone is a part of)
and names the child. The name is in the Old Speech, as all True
Names are, and becomes their name.